Payments, Held Payments & Refunds Policy

Money talk, made simple 🐾 Here's how paying for a booking works on Swipaw, where your money waits during the service, and what happens when plans change or something goes wrong.

In short: Your payment waits with our payment partner Xendit, in an account kept for your provider, until the service is done: that's Payment Protection (protektado ang bayad mo), and Swipaw never holds it. The provider is paid when you confirm, or 48 hours after they mark the booking done, less our commission, unless you dispute first. Cancel early for a full refund; your rights over a bad or missing service always stay. Refunds go back the way you paid, or to your own account, fee-free. Kung may problema, tell us: we decide complaints within 7 days.

1. About this policy#

1. Swipaw is operated by Parada Technologies Inc. ("Swipaw", "we"). This Payments, Held Payments & Refunds Policy forms part of our Terms of Service and applies to every booking payment, alongside Xendit's own terms.
2. A requester books and pays; a provider performs a paid service; a booking is their service contract, created when a request is accepted; release is when held money passes to the provider's side.
3. It covers paid playdates, stud services, pet hotels and grooming today, and each "coming soon" service from launch (Additional Services Terms). Each service's terms (stud, pet hotel, grooming, playdate) and the Provider Agreement prevail where more specific. The numbered clauses govern.

2. How paying works#

1. Checkout. You pay in pesos on a Xendit checkout page from your booking, by GCash, Maya, card, online banking or over the counter; Swipaw never sees your full card number or e-wallet login. By default you need basic verification first (Verification Policy).
2. Payment Protection. Your payment is collected by Xendit Philippines, Inc. ("Xendit"), an operator of payment systems registered with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) under the National Payment Systems Act (RA 11127), into an account it keeps for your provider (a "sub-account"), and held there until released or refunded under this policy: that is Payment Protection. Our commission reaches us only at release.
3. Our role. Each provider appoints Swipaw as its limited agent to collect its booking payments, and requesters use us only to give payment instructions: we request payment and instruct release or refund, but only Xendit receives and holds the money. Paying the checkout total settles what you owe the provider. Providers can take paid bookings only once their sub-account is live, and must not withdraw held money except through Swipaw.
4. What we are not. Swipaw is not a bank, e-money issuer, trust entity or deposit-taker: it never holds your money in its own name, and never in trust or on deposit, which the General Banking Law of 2000 (RA 8791) reserves to authorised entities. Nothing on Swipaw is e-money or stored value, and held money earns no interest.

3. When the money moves#

1. Accepted. Once a request is accepted, pay within 24 hours or the booking expires, the slot is freed and nothing is charged. A payment arriving late is refunded in full if the slot has gone.
2. Paid. Payment confirms the booking, opens its chat, shows both of you the exact address and e-mails you a payment acknowledgement.
3. Released. Once the provider marks the booking done, and unless a dispute (section 7) or card chargeback is open, the payment is released when you confirm or automatically 48 hours later (or after the period your booking shows), and our commission and any withholding tax (section 10) are split off; the rest is the provider's earnings.
4. Paid out. Earnings are paid out on the schedule in section 11 once the payment has settled with Xendit; earnings from card payments wait an extra 7 days after release, in case of a chargeback.

4. The price, commission and fees#

1. The total shown before you pay is what you pay, taxes included (VAT where the provider is VAT-registered), with no fee added: we absorb Xendit's checkout fees.
2. Our commission is 10% of the booking price by default, or a category's own rate shown to providers before they list and in each price breakdown. It includes any VAT we must charge, comes out of the provider's share, never on top of your price, and also applies to what a provider keeps after a cancellation or split.
3. We give providers at least 30 days' notice before changing a commission rate or default cancellation window, unless the law requires faster, and changes never affect accepted bookings. Xendit's payout fee is paid by Swipaw; refund transfers are always free for the person refunded.

5. Cancellations and no-shows#

1. Unless the listing showed you another policy before you paid, these windows apply, counted back from the booked start (check-in for pet hotels), Philippine time. Percentages are of what you paid; what is not refunded goes to the provider, less our commission.

2. Before you pay, the app shows these as exact cut-off times, saved with your booking. Examples with the default windows (November 2026):

3. Change of mind only. The windows cover changes of plan, reflecting the provider's loss of a slot it cannot refill, and never limit your remedies for a defective, incomplete or undelivered service: under the Consumer Act of the Philippines (RA 7394, Art. 102) you may ask, through a dispute, for the service to be redone at no extra cost, a refund or a proportionate price reduction.
4. Provider cancellations are refunded in full, whenever made, and count against the provider. A welfare refusal or stop that the category terms allow counts against no one, and every part not performed is refunded.
5. Force majeure. When we post a force-majeure notice for an area and dates (a typhoon signal, flood, earthquake, eruption or government order), either party, or we, may cancel a covered booking: everything still held is refunded and no one is penalised. If no notice covers your event, ask support.
6. No-shows. If you neither come nor cancel, the provider may report a no-show from 60 minutes after the booked start (pet hotels: once the check-in day ends), settled as a late cancellation. If the provider does not come, open a dispute: a confirmed provider no-show is refunded in full.

6. Refunds#

1. Back the way you paid. Refunds start as soon as you are entitled to one. It returns to your payment method while that channel accepts refunds: GCash up to 180 days after payment, Maya up to 365 days, cards up to 365 days.
2. Otherwise, by transfer. Online banking and over-the-counter payments, payments past those windows and refunds a channel refuses go by transfer to a GCash, Maya or bank account in your own name that you add when we ask; a new account waits 24 hours, and a refund above one e-wallet transfer (₱50,000) needs a bank account. No verification is needed to receive a refund.
3. Timing. Refunds usually land within 3 business days on e-wallets and 10 on cards, and transfers within 5 of sending.
4. In full, in money. Refunds, including partial ones, carry no channel or transfer fee and are paid in pesos, never as a Swipaw balance or credit. Paw Points and their rewards have no cash value and are never refunded as money.

7. Disputes#

1. When. Open a dispute from the booking in the app before the payment is released: requesters from the booked start if the provider has not come, during the service, and after it is marked done until they confirm or it confirms automatically; providers once the service has started.
2. Freeze. While a dispute is open, the payment stays held and the provider's payouts wait.
3. Evidence. Add photos, screenshots, documents or notes, which the other party and our team see. For that dispute only, our team may read the booking chat, and every access is logged.
4. Decision. A person on our team, never an automated system, aims to decide within 72 hours and gives you both the outcome and reasons. If you both agree the provider will redo the service at no extra cost, the payment stays held until it is done.

5. After release, complain under section 13; if a refund is owed, we can order it and recover it from the provider's unpaid earnings.

8. Chargebacks#

1. Please dispute with us first. A chargeback you ask your card issuer for follows the card network's and Xendit's rules, and we give them the booking record; no one is refunded twice.
2. Providers: before release, a chargeback keeps the payment held; after release, the amount comes out of your unpaid, then future, earnings. Send the evidence we ask for within 3 days so we can contest it. If the cardholder wins, we return our commission and the tax withheld on that amount, and you bear the rest.

9. Receipts and invoices#

1. For every payment, Parada Technologies Inc. issues a numbered payment acknowledgement, e-mailed with a printable page you can save as a PDF. It is not an official invoice.
2. The provider, as seller of the service, must give you its own BIR-registered invoice where the National Internal Revenue Code, as amended by the Ease of Paying Taxes Act (RA 11976), requires one: for any sale of ₱500 or more, and any sale by a VAT-registered provider. The acknowledgement names the provider and says so.
3. We invoice each commission to the provider, with a credit memo if it is later reversed.

10. Tax withheld from providers#

1. Requesters never pay this. Providers must be registered with the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), with a verified TIN and Certificate of Registration, before a paid listing goes live.
2. Under BIR Revenue Regulations No. 16-2023, as amended, we withhold 0.5% creditable withholding tax on each gross remittance to you (the booking price less our commission and any VAT you charge), unless you gave us a BIR-received Sworn Declaration, renewed by 20 January each year, that your yearly gross remittances from all platforms will not exceed ₱500,000, or proof of exemption; once our remittances to you in a year pass ₱500,000, we withhold from that remittance on.
3. Withheld tax counts toward your income tax. We issue BIR Form 2307 within 20 days after each quarter and on request, and report remittances to the BIR.

11. Payout accounts and payouts#

1. Providers are paid only after basic verification, into up to 3 GCash, Maya or bank accounts in their own legal or BIR-registered business name; we refuse other names and accounts another user registered.
2. Adding, removing or changing a default account needs fresh proof that it is you, is limited per 30 days and alerts you by e-mail and in the app. A new account waits 24 hours before receiving money.
3. Earnings go from your sub-account to your default account on the schedule in your Earnings statement (a daily batch at 10:00 Manila time by default) or on request. Amounts below the minimum shown there wait, e-wallet payouts above ₱50,000 are split, and a daily limit may roll the rest over. The statement is not money you can spend or transfer.
4. Payouts wait while a dispute on one of your bookings, a chargeback, an amount, fraud or legal check, or a clause 12.4 hold is open, or while your account or sub-account is suspended; you see why unless the law forbids it.

12. Limits, off-app payments and scams (ingat po)#

1. E-wallet, card and over-the-counter payments are capped at ₱100,000 each, and one person may pay ₱200,000 a day in total; larger bookings can use online banking, channels may set lower limits, and the pay screen shows which methods fit your amount.
2. Pay and get paid only in the app: money paid outside it (cash, transfers, QR codes or links in chat) has no Payment Protection and cannot be refunded by us, and asking for it breaks the Terms of Service.
3. We never ask, by chat, call, e-mail or SMS, for your one-time code, PIN, password or a "release" fee; pay only on the Xendit page the app opens. Lending, renting or selling a payout or e-wallet account, or receiving money for others, is money muling under the Anti-Financial Account Scamming Act (RA 12010); we close such accounts.
4. Under that law, banks, e-wallets and payment companies such as Xendit may hold disputed funds for up to 30 days, or longer only as the law allows, and we pause related payouts while they do.
5. Report scams through the app's Report option, where shown, or at [email protected]; if you lost money, alert your bank or e-wallet at once and call the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center hotline 1326.

13. Complaints and where else to go#

1. Start with us: a dispute while the payment is held; otherwise a support ticket, [email protected], (to be published) or a letter to 24 Sheridan Towers North, Buayang Bato, Mandaluyong City, Metro Manila 1550, Philippines.
2. We acknowledge complaints in writing within one business day and decide them, with reasons, within 7 calendar days of filing. A complaint still unresolved then has exhausted our process under the Internet Transactions Act of 2023 (RA 11967); our decision never takes away your legal rights.
3. The service or our platform: then, or whenever the law allows, go to the Department of Trade and Industry's Consumer Care (consumercare.dti.gov.ph or [email protected]), which starts with mediation, or the Philippine Online Dispute Resolution System; file a small claim of up to ₱1,000,000 without a lawyer; use barangay conciliation where required; or go to court.
4. A failed, double or unauthorised payment: your bank or e-wallet and Xendit first, then the BSP's Consumer Assistance Mechanism (Financial Products and Services Consumer Protection Act, RA 11765); we share the payment record.
5. Your personal data: our Data Protection Officer at [email protected], then the National Privacy Commission (privacy.gov.ph), under the Data Privacy Act of 2012 (RA 10173).
6. Complaining is free and never counts against you. Details: Complaints.